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An earlier article by the same author: Why climate change is good for the world - "Don't panic! The scientific consensus is that warmer temperatures do more go

by miles 7y ago

An earlier article by the same author: Why climate change is good for the world - "Don't panic! The scientific consensus is that warmer temperatures do more good than harm" https://www.spectator.co.uk/2013/10/carry-on-warming/ https://www.spectator.co.uk/2013/10/carry-on-warming/ His tenure at Northern Rock does not inspire confidence: The man who crocked Northern Rock - and how the scandal will cost £55 BILLION https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1026384/The-man-crocked-Northern-Rock--scandal-cost-55-BILLION.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1026384/The-man-cro... Lessons of the fall - "How a financial darling fell from grace, and why regulators didn't catch it" https://www.economist.com/briefing/2007/10/18/lessons-of-the-fall https://www.economist.com/briefing/2007/10/18/lessons-of-the... Northern Rock chairman quits after crisis https://www.euronews.com/2007/10/19/northern-rock-chairman-quits-after-crisis https://www.euronews.com/2007/10/19/northern-rock-chairman-q... Matt Ridley would turn planet into Northern Rock https://theecologist.org/2018/nov/05/matt-ridley-would-turn-planet-northern-rock https://theecologist.org/2018/nov/05/matt-ridley-would-turn-...

klenwell 7y ago
I thought I recognized the name: http://www.mattridley.co.uk/books/ http://www.mattridley.co.uk/books/ I read his book Genome years ago and thought it was a moderately interesting primer on the revolution in genetic research starting to unfold in the wake of the Human Genome Project. I'm sorry to discover Viscount Ridley turned out to be such a hack: https://hansard.parliament.uk/search/MemberContributions?memberId=4272 https://hansard.parliament.uk/search/MemberContributions?mem...
thu2111 7y ago
Is that why this article is flagged? Because of who wrote it? Do you have any specific disagreement with anything he wrote? Because it seemed to be an interesting article with many things in it I didn't know, written in an engaging style. From glancing through the comments below it seems people are angry because this guy isn't angry, and doesn't believe the world is doomed. Why climate change is good for the world - "Don't panic! The scientific consensus is that warmer temperatures do more good than harm" You don't explicitly pass judgement on this, apparently believing climate sensitivity and impact of small temperature changes is so obvious as to be beyond doubt. But there's a lot of doubt about how sensitive the climate really is. Climatology is very far from being a precise and well understood science, and that's before you get into some of the questionable scientific practices found inside. The article is, again, well written and makes good arguments. It starts by citing a scientific meta-study into the economic impacts and goes from there. It also acknowledges the possible counter-arguments. For those who are interested in the question of climate sensitivity Nic Lewis (a published climate scientist and skeptic), has some good talks on the matter, like this one: https://www.nicholaslewis.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Lewis_Climate-Sensitivity_talk_Dublin2019-slides.pdf https://www.nicholaslewis.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Lew... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYZW-6jw98U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYZW-6jw98U
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Matt Ridley and James Delingpole are regulars in the Spectator and Telegraph since their capture by the extreme. They regularly mangle facts, cherry pick and misquote to give highly misleading pieces. So much so they have become notorious for it. Nic Lewis, retired financier, physicist and mathematician, is not a climate scientist, despite his interest and Lawson thinktank funded paper. Calling himself an independent climate scientist doesn't make him one. Let't take a look. Here's a report when it was published[1]. Even one of the people Mr Lewis cites disputes his claims. The "good news" the IPCC apparently tried to hide is that the world's climate system is less sensitive to a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than some scientists think it is. The bad news for the GWPF – a secretly funded organisation founded by UK climate science sceptic Lord Nigel Lawson - is that before the ink has even dried on their new report, the organisation has been accused of cherry-picking facts to make their argument stick. And in more bad news, one of the researchers cited by the GWPF report has told me that even if Lawson's think tank is right, then we're heading for 3C of global heating by the end of the century (which is actually very bad news). Good prose does not make a good scientific or factual argument. It is as you say, just "good talks", or hot air. Lawson was so bad at denial that his appearances on the BBC were more a black comedy five minutes than actual contrarianism. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/mar/06/lord-lawson-climate-sceptic-thinktank https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/mar/0...

by miles 7y ago

klenwell 7y ago

I thought I recognized the name: http://www.mattridley.co.uk/books/ http://www.mattridley.co.uk/books/ I read his book Genome years ago and thought it was a moderately interesting primer on the revolution in genetic research starting to unfold in the wake of the Human Genome Project. I'm sorry to discover Viscount Ridley turned out to be such a hack: https://hansard.parliament.uk/search/MemberContributions?memberId=4272 https://hansard.parliament.uk/search/MemberContributions?mem...

thu2111 7y ago

Is that why this article is flagged? Because of who wrote it? Do you have any specific disagreement with anything he wrote? Because it seemed to be an interesting article with many things in it I didn't know, written in an engaging style. From glancing through the comments below it seems people are angry because this guy isn't angry, and doesn't believe the world is doomed. Why climate change is good for the world - "Don't panic! The scientific consensus is that warmer temperatures do more good than harm" You don't explicitly pass judgement on this, apparently believing climate sensitivity and impact of small temperature changes is so obvious as to be beyond doubt. But there's a lot of doubt about how sensitive the climate really is. Climatology is very far from being a precise and well understood science, and that's before you get into some of the questionable scientific practices found inside. The article is, again, well written and makes good arguments. It starts by citing a scientific meta-study into the economic impacts and goes from there. It also acknowledges the possible counter-arguments. For those who are interested in the question of climate sensitivity Nic Lewis (a published climate scientist and skeptic), has some good talks on the matter, like this one: https://www.nicholaslewis.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Lewis_Climate-Sensitivity_talk_Dublin2019-slides.pdf https://www.nicholaslewis.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Lew... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYZW-6jw98U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYZW-6jw98U

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Matt Ridley and James Delingpole are regulars in the Spectator and Telegraph since their capture by the extreme. They regularly mangle facts, cherry pick and misquote to give highly misleading pieces. So much so they have become notorious for it. Nic Lewis, retired financier, physicist and mathematician, is not a climate scientist, despite his interest and Lawson thinktank funded paper. Calling himself an independent climate scientist doesn't make him one. Let't take a look. Here's a report when it was published[1]. Even one of the people Mr Lewis cites disputes his claims. The "good news" the IPCC apparently tried to hide is that the world's climate system is less sensitive to a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than some scientists think it is. The bad news for the GWPF – a secretly funded organisation founded by UK climate science sceptic Lord Nigel Lawson - is that before the ink has even dried on their new report, the organisation has been accused of cherry-picking facts to make their argument stick. And in more bad news, one of the researchers cited by the GWPF report has told me that even if Lawson's think tank is right, then we're heading for 3C of global heating by the end of the century (which is actually very bad news). Good prose does not make a good scientific or factual argument. It is as you say, just "good talks", or hot air. Lawson was so bad at denial that his appearances on the BBC were more a black comedy five minutes than actual contrarianism. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/mar/06/lord-lawson-climate-sceptic-thinktank https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/mar/0...